In the last game I played (4 players), I led off with Marauding Pixies. In 2 turns I'd conquered half the board, and went into decline with 11 territories, even after losing a few due to the Pixies' weakness of only leaving 1 in each territory.

Everyone groaned when I paid extra to get Flying Giants on turn 4, and I pretty much ran away with the game after taking a few strategic mountains.

Lately me and friends were discussing the races after game and we decided that the most powerful and unstoppable combo is Seafering Priestesses. If you lucky and act quickly it gives you about 5/6+ VP per turn that noone can touch. When taken as a first race it will set the game from the beggining. If you are lucky then get Bivouacking Elves (virtually not killable) as the second and its an almoust sure win. Fortyfied Trolls will do good also as the second race.

Actually, for elves I always thought the special ability of choice was the one that gave an extra coin for non-empty regions you conquer... Because it really doesn't matter if they conquer you back; you're going to pull everything off and go rampaging again anyway!

Yeah but you are still vulnerable to sorcerers ability unles the elves are standing on a bivaq wich is treated like a second token so you can leave a single elf token whibout need to wory that it will be converted.

About my previous post i thought that throught and the second race choice should be spirit + anything combo

Yeah but you are still vulnerable to sorcerers ability unles the elves are standing on a bivaq wich is treated like a second token so you can leave a single elf token whibout need to wory that it will be converted.

About my previous post i thought that throught and the second race choice should be spirit + anything combo Very Happy

[Updated on: Wed, 29 December 2010 04:44]

Actually, if you're doing nothing but pulling all your elves off and conquering like a mad fool, you'll rarely (if ever) have a territory with a solitary token

Actually, if you're doing nothing but pulling all your elves off and conquering like a mad fool, you'll rarely (if ever) have a territory with a solitary token

Yeah but they will not get to much gold every turn because this tactic can be easily countered. Other players will just start piling up and you have other players that will just kill your oportunity to destroy the in decline races and old race. Less conquests less gold. At least thats what hapenning when someone puls the Pilaging Elves combo when we play.

You see? That's what I like about this game... There isn't a single strategy or combination that's all-powerful That being said, there are combos that ourtight suck, but I don't think it was intended that all the races and powers be of equal potency; that falls into the strategy of the game: The optimal time to go into decline, and the number of coins that need to pile on the mounted dwarves before they begin to look appealing

Played an interesting combination last night. I started with Commando Tritons, who immediately conquered a vast swath along the coastline where several races were in decline. After immediately going into decline with the Tritons, I played Spirit Ghouls, adjacent to the Tritons, claiming three more territories. They were immediately put into decline, and then followed by Maurauding White Priestesses (although it could have been Maurauding anything). On the final turn, this allowed points for the remaining Tritons, an attack by the Ghouls to double their territory, and then two attacks by the Priestesses. In one turn, I ended up with nearly a third of the map.

One of the most powerfull combo's I have ever had is DragonMaster-Skeletons. I was unstopable. I gained at least one skeleton-token every turn, but most of the times two. Within notime I occupied half the board. And with lots of tokens and 1 region imune they are very strong in the defense too.

We are used to playing with the two of us, which propably makes a difference in combochoise.

Barricade Skeletons - There is two phases with skeletons, the first one is when you earn more skeletons tokens.
And the second is when you spread out to win a lot of points.
Usually the first phase is very difficult, because you win too less victory points, and if you want to gain more and you don't give up territories, you'll be an easy target and you'll never pass to the second phase^^
With the Barricade's power, the first phase will be extremly difficult to counter by the other players and bring back a lot of points. (Unbreakable at two players)
If you give up all your territories at the beggining of your turn, that allows you to have a great power of attack too.

Barricade at two players Gypsies at two players
- Giving up territories at two players is not an handicap at all! Because every point your ennemy lose, it's like you win those.
It's very good to stay on very few cases when the adversary wants your dead^^, and with your great power of attack (thank to your giving up territories), you can destroy him easily if he spreads out.
Well, Barricade Gypsies is just AMAZING at two players^^

I played my first games this weekend one-on-one against my adult daughter. The most frustrating turns for her were when she had Bivouacking Trolls. Nasty defense, but no contest against my Dragon Master Orcs, who could always smash one of her massively fortified areas.

After buying all the expansions I sat down to a 4 player game with my brother and sisters.

My brother took the Ransacking Kobolds right away and started off with 15 tokens. He had a slow start to the game until I let slip from my mind that if I was him I'd abandon at the start of each turn and prey on people. Then he really got going.

While I started with Underground Halflings I quickly switched to Fortified Humans which proved to be a really strong pairing. I was collecting close to 12 points a turn and basically doing almost nothing.

My brother however was on a tear, taking points from everyone and collecting even more at turns end.

He stuck with the Kobolds the whole game and we both tied at 56 points (our first ever tie!) and he beat me by having a whole 2 more tokens than me on the board.

Recently we had a funny game at home.
My brother took merchant Pygmies in the first turn. He played the whole game with his Pygmies and finally won it. It was a 5 players game.

In my opinion Merchant Pygmies is a really strong combination, because you get more token when you get attacked and as an opponent you have to attack a merchant, because otherwise he will score without any limit.

Just played my first game tonight. My brother bought the game as an early Christmas present. It took a bit to get the rules (I still think I don't understand some of it.. new to boardgames and all).

Anyway we shuffled the races and powers and picked randomly (without looking). I ended up with Ratmen/Flying and he got Wizards/Forests. Not sure if those are sure fire combos but it worked for me. I think we got the rules wrong about how to start a game but being able to fly and outnumber him from the beginning was really nice nonetheless

Were-skeletons would be pretty crazy. You could get so many extra tokens from blasting though low-defence occupied regions for 1 each.

An interesting combo I saw last game I played. One player got corrupt pixies, and no one wanted to attack her because they'd have to pay her money plus she still has a bunch of tokens to redeploy anyways.

Crazier than that though, the game before another person got Imperial Homonculi, and was able to get many spaces in a region the rest of us could no easily access. Along with her declined race, the she got 17, 19, and 20 point on 3 of her turns; it was ridiculous.

For a two player game Pillaging Orcs is excellent - just keep decamping and whacking your opponant getting 3 coins for each occupied region they have and forcing them quickly into decline - eventually they are forced to take an agressive race to takcle depleat your orcs but hopefully by then the damage is done

commando or mounted Giants are a quick bash as they quickly extend themselves to the maximum (has been known to take one turn ) in one of our games

HI Folks,
I'm Paul, I've owned Small World for about two weeks and I think i'm an addict. Loving it two player, and have yet to play with a larger number and need more races and powers dammit

So - Diplomatic Skeletons - A single race vs three race strategy.

Excellent - a race that gains more soldiers by winning two territories per turn and a power that means that any race that isn't attacked can't attack them. Besides, my opponents Spirit Elves are best left alone. Attacking them only encourages 'em.

So: chew through the lost tribes, then when they run out, chew through the (now) declined Spirit Elves while also literally surrounding the Fortified Wizards and claiming diplomatic immunity (for one turn they were limited to only one square), and occupying their magic spaces with diplomacy.

A plan that only started to fall down when the skeletons started to run out of tokens and the wizards were replaced by hyper agressive Commando Ghouls who did a lot of damage in the single turn they arrived, before our chief diplomats could get a word in. Still plenty of (spirit) Elves and Wizards left to chew on, but that was also earning the other side more than I was getting through my massive skeleton crew after the ghouls had kicked them out of the mountains - and only one turn to try to turn the tables... not enough.

The strongest combination I have found so far has been pillaging elves. I saw that sword at the wrong end. He stuck with them the whole game and ran over every player in the game. Most of us just trying to stay away from the immortal elves ransacking our territories. It was painful watching my forest wizards destroyed first turn.

I quite enjoyed playing Commando Giants a few times especially if you get them at the start, I used the Commando to take a couple of mountain regions for cheap at the start, then spreading out from them for a really low cost. It's a fairly effective way to get several spaces at the start or do some cheap damage to other races surrounding the mountains. It is a combo that is more for the short term though and not one designed for the long haul, I usually stick them into decline fairly quickly.

In Undergorund I think that the Thieving Drows are pretty nasty. Usually the big weakness of the Drow is that they need to stay away, so people tend to gang up on them. With Thieving this tactict is a lot less interesting. It's not an super-powerful combo, but it's pretty nasty.

I haven't gotten it yet, but I"m hoping to: Corrupt Leprechauns
Put all your pots of gold out there. If someone takes them, they still have to pay you. Even if it's not super strong, it will still be interesting to see other players try and decide whether or not to attack you.

During a game a friends of mine got Seafaring Priestess.
The majority of the participants was new to the game so they didn't fully understand the seriosity of the situation, i tried to stop him but he managed to spread out quite a bit.

So of course the Ivory Tower of the Seafaring Priestess' ended up in a Sea. Giving him quite a steady income for a while.

Merchant Amazones and Wereamazones, the former being the most powerful. 16 victory coins each turn, for two or three turns. I won with 100 victory points.,it was awesome, and satisfactory since it was the first time a played

One of the best combination I have seen so far, was Merchant Pygmies!
My brother got it in the first round of a 5-player game and finished the game with the same race ^^
He also got at least 10 points per turn (except the first one) and if someome tried to conquer him, he got even more tokens and could spread out further

I had spirit Ghouls on turn 8/10, wanting to get a second in decline race I lucked out with Stout Trolls coming up in the flop. Bought past all 5 others and on turn 9 had stout trolls come in to decline then turn 10 a new race that I can't even remember what they were, but attacking with declined Ghouls and my active race in the last round brought lots of points my way on the last round.